Someone Call for a Narrator?
by Nyah
Summary: Sometimes, Angela thinks, her friends' lives could really use a better narrator. One who's kinder but more honest. Alternately titled: The Parts in the Sum of the Whole as read by Angela Montenegro. B/B. Complete.
1. Dude, where's my gore?

**Disclaimer: **The parts and the sum and the whole of the thing belong to Hart Hanson and Fox, etc.

**Warning: Spoilers for episode 100, "The Parts in the Sum of the Whole."**

**Note: **The last time Bones went all artsy and literary on us, there was a tumor and a coma dream so we got Jack Hodgins as narrator to help straighten us out. And that was nice. But Hodgins doesn't scream "matter of the heart." Well, not as well as Angela does anyway. So, for this landmark episode, I'm giving Angela a shot. This is totally off the wall and not like anything I've done. So, well, feedback extra appreciated.

**Someone Call for a Narrator? **

**Or**

"**The Parts in the Sum of the Whole" as read by Angela Montenegro**

**[1] Dude, where's my gore?**

Things are different to begin with. That one thing you must remember or nothing that follows will seem wondrous. Okay, that's probably not true but it'll definitely seem _less_ wondrous.

So we start like this: Booth and Brennan are riding an escalator, going up. It's typical for them, standing side-by-side, moved together by an outside force. But it's not exactly the typical start to a case. I mean where's the challenge to my gag reflex? Where's the gore so unfailingly revolting that it's only surprising now when it succeeds in making him flinch. Isn't this case supposed to start a different way? Shouldn't some hapless hominids happen across some horrible human remains? Not today. No sir-ee, Bob.

Instead, they're discussing Sweets and the book we've all been waiting for. So in case the Dickens reference a few sentences back didn't sink in, here it is again: things are different this time around. Just in case you weren't sure. How often does one of their cases begin in such an atypical fashion? I can think of one other time. And at the end of that one he woke up.

In the middle of a conversation that started somewhere in the dark, somewhere below the street, somewhere before we started watching, Booth gently brings up that they need to tell Sweets about the mistake he made and Brennan agrees. And because he's a nice guy, Booth feels bad that they're going to ruin Sweets's happy ending, going to tag team a boy who's trying so hard to become a man. Last week it was a ring, today it's a book. Booth talks about how well people usually take warnings. Usually it involves screaming and running into walls. Ouch.

Brennan is hysterical, coaching herself through Booth's half-assed metaphor about shouting "fire." She says "Okay, okay" as she works out the analogy and we can only see the back of Booth's head and a hint of waggling eyebrows but this would be a perfect moment for an "attagirl." You know, not like that other one.

It's important to note that "attagirl" _is_ part of their relationship. They are each other other's best friend. So "attagirl" is part of it but not all of it. (And since I'm the narrator and it's my job to point out the obvious, I'll take the opportunity to say that if ever in the course of this story you forget that the title is, "The Parts in the Sum of the Whole" you're going to be missing sooo much.)

Like always, Brennan is rational. She'd want to know about a mistake in one of her books so Sweets will certainly appreciate knowing as well. The fact that she still doesn't really consider Sweets a person of science (like herself) doesn't factor in. Even after all this time, she still assumes everyone is rational. Like you and I might make assumptions about, I dunno, gravity. Apples fall, planets rotate the sun. These are the rules. Perfect and rational. But she, Sweetie that she is, wants to extend perfection beyond the sun to everything and everyone under the sun. She who finds the notion of God distasteful still wants to make gods of the rest of us.

When Booth calls the mistake an interpretation she is horrified. "Okay, what exactly do you think, you _think _ we're telling him about?" Booth asks. And you gotta take a moment and revel in this exchange:

Her: Page 31, and I quote ....

Him: Oh! Right, yeah. We worked that other case before that.

Her: What did you think we were going to talk to him about?

Him: The whole, uh, love thing?

And he's totally baiting her here but you probably don't mind because, admit it, you're used to siding with Booth. You've learned to get where Brennan's coming from but Seeley Booth is your Everyman, right? Which is why this moment is great. Because the scene might (and will) end in Brennan sneering over the notion that she'd be upset by Sweets's opinion that she and Booth are in love. "Why would I care about that?" she says, carelessly breaking our hearts while Booth looks puzzled. He's hinted about his feelings to her more than once now so he's not at all heart broken when she doesn't take the bait.

Don't worry Booth, that'll come later.

So we love her but we're annoyed with her and it's so typical that we forget, for a second, to be annoyed with him. But things are different today and he deserves it. Boy, does he deserve it! Sure she might be zealously focussed on page 31 instead of the "whole love thing" but why, for crying out loud, isn't he? He only remembers that they worked a case before Cleo Eller at her prompting.

_Big deal!_ You might argue.

_But it is! _I reply.

See, it's not that he forgot the case, it's that he didn't even realize Sweets might need to know all the stuff that happened during the case, with the case, around the case. I'll tell you ahead of time, gentle readers, today's story is many stories and each small story describes a larger one. And the story he's just now remembering is not about the case, it's not about the noun. It's about prepositions. Like this entire saga of our lives. It's not about the terrible thing that happened but about all the other things that happened alongside that thing.

So we're annoyed with him too because the prepositions of that first case-all the stuff that happened with and during and around that first murder case-those are BIG things. So he's trying to talk about love and for once she's right to be horrified.

_To Be Continued._


	2. How to Lose a Shrink in Ten Days

_**Disclaimer: **See part 1_

_**2] How to Lose a Shrink in Ten Days**_

By the time they're in Sweets's office, Booth's all finished shaking his head at her because Brennan is Brennan and no amount of hopeless gesturing is going to change that. Right?

"What mistake?" Sweets asks and he's kind of amused because he's used to them saying he's wrong (Lord, is he used to it!). But they've never managed to convince him. My proof is this: he wrote a book. Even though he _knew _they'd tell him he was wrong—he's been waiting for it since he brought it up to Gordon Wyatt (and wasn't that something? I could have helped there too, you know. With Wyatt, you need guts. And Shakespeare. But no one asks the artist). Even though they've told him to his face they don't take him seriously and his profession's a sham.

Because what do they know? He's a prodigal and a prodigy and maybe a prophet. He's already gotten the girl. He's already written the book.

And now they're saying it's wrong. Of course.

"It's not what you think," says Booth and he's already waiting for Sweets to say:

"You disagree with my conclusion that the two of you are in love and the sublimating energies of that connection are responsible for the energy (he grins), vigor (cocks an eyebrow) and rigor (and now he's just blatantly being sexy) that you bring to your homicide investigation."

Booth is not distracted for a second even though it's totally clear that Sweets has been rehearsing for interviews, or conferences, or maybe just for them. He was waiting for it and right on point he quips, "I just told you it's not what you think and you immediately say what you think."

Points to Booth. I mean that's just hilarious and he knows it. Anticipating the analyst? Poor Sweets. The only real solution, like it always is with these two, would have been to say nothing and let them tell the story on their terms. Because they're never _wrong_. Just, sometimes they don't have enough information.

Right.

So Sweets totally shuts down the sexy and looks very, _very _nonplussed while Brennan rehashes her tired old denial of psychology (one day she's going to use psychology to denounce psychology and I hope I'm there for it). And brings up the typos. And then gives him the green light to publish. Of course.

And I hope you've noticed that we've already changed directions.

Keep up with me, kids.

They came in to talk about Cleo Eller and instead they've talked about everything else. They're almost doing it right without realizing it.

Here's how you know: Brennan says it in an offhand manner, it takes second place to typos, "The Cleo Eller case was not our first case."

Sweets suddenly decides to play word association. "Woah," he says. "Woah, woah, woah-woah. Whoa." Sweets! For Heaven's sake! Haven't you learned to be careful with that word? A person might think Brennan's asked you for sperm or something.

But I'll forgive it because it really is a magical game. Now, once again, we're getting to the heart of things. They keep trying for a disconnect. They're trying to deny Sweets's end without giving him the beginning. But, in this story, all the parts matter. It says so in the title.

And Sweets … well, Brennan was right before. And so was Booth, literally _and_ figuratively, though he didn't know it. Sweets looks like he's run into a wall. He has. Them.

So they stand a little awkwardly like they're trying to dig up sympathy. And they're really terrible at it. But can you blame them? They run into this same wall every single day. Them. They've built it themselves from all the pieces lying about. It's a good wall and a strong wall and a high wall. And that's all fan-freaking-tastic until you need to see what's on the other side.

Sweets scrabbles for a handhold, talks about how his entire conclusion is based upon their first case. (I'm going to call bullshit here, boy genius. I may not have been deemed worthy of a peek at one of those nice red binders, but seriously? If your whole conclusion is based on that one case, what have you been doing for, like, the past three years?)

"It wasn't our first time," Oops. Even narrators are subject to Freudian slips. _Case_, he said, not _time_. But same difference really because he says it while looking between Sweets and Brennan like he's checking to make sure this is okay. We're not talking about dead girls at this point, we're talking about Booth and Brennan and the loss of their own weird brand of virginity.

Sweets gawks like a flabbergasted father. He's Merlin, living life in reverse so the end is crystal clear but the beginning is a constant surprise.

Don't worry darling, they make me feel like that too. Confused and magical.

"Please," he says. "Tell me about that real first case to see if my conclusions are still valid." (Honey, you're not fooling anyone. We all know your conclusions are valid. But thanks for the segue.)

Booth and Brennan share a look. There's uncertainty and trust there in equal measure. So they sit, never thinking twice about fighting gravity.

And this is a good place to follow their lead. Seriously. Sit down. Because things are about to get amazing. We're about to look at God's list of favorite movies (or maybe the list of the guy who wrote this saga but for our purposes, same diff). And somewhere near the top of that list is "When Harry Met Sally." Really. It is. You're about to see it and if you don't quite get it, that's okay. We'll come back to it later. But for now, think of those end credits, Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan interviewing amongst the old people when all is said and done. Think about that and watch:

"A girl was murdered and her remains …."

"Her name was Gemma …."

Nostalgically, they talk almost on top of each other, asserting who they used to be.

We first see Booth staking money on a game of pool. In the present, she calls his gambling a problem and, even now, his addiction peeks out to say it wasn't much of a problem since he won. And that's important, we'll come back to that. But something else that's important that Booth didn't point out (which is why I'm here, obviously) is Booth's gambling on pool. It's not really what you picture, is it, when you think gambling addiction. You think cards and casinos and off the track betting. And really, this is DC. It's not like Pimlico requires a major road trip.

So the pool thing? Important.

Well, not pool itself. It doesn't matter that Booth's all pool hall slang and too slick hair (Even though, ick. Who would have thought _Booth_ would be the one to be an acquired taste?). It matters that Booth's betting on a game he can play. He's betting on himself.

He wins.

Then he gets a call. He meets the victim's mother and even with the ick-slick hair and the fact that he smells like booze and cigarettes, she cries on his shoulder. And we weren't sure until right now but, yep, under the dive-bar aroma and the G-man suit, he's still, already, Booth.

Booth does my job for a while and in that delightful piece of exposition we hear some legal jargon the leads from New York to coroner to Cam. And I'm just going to let his narration stand because if I do it, you know I'm going to get distracted by that little grin she's wearing and then I'm going to wonder what exactly took place during the rest of their "meeting" and then I might not adequately stress what Cam has to say. Which is _huge_. She can get him the paperwork he wants. But. "You know the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome."

Yeah, that's the _huge_ I was talking about. She says it quickly but don't worry, someone will remind us again later.

"How's about you get another point of view?" And while it's natural to assume that this is when Cam brilliantly asks for _my_ input and this whole narrator gig kicks off, this is actually when we find out that _Camille Saroyan_ suggested Booth seek Brennan out.

So, not about me. But still kind of a big deal. And in a much bigger way than the expression you're wearing which is a cutesy, "gee whiz, it was Cam?" Because in a few seconds we're going to talk about fate and who believes what but before that happens we have Cam, who will show up in her boss-shoes two years down the road, but right now, in the past, she's telling him to go find that forensic anthropologist. And that tastes a lot like fate.

She calls him out on his sharking, he complains about the difference between cops and squints. By the time Cam walks away, I'm good to go with the narrating because that was a perfect little scene. You can get everything about the two of them, together, from that scene. It's in the way she knows he's been up all night, knows his bad habits. It's in the way he argues with her in axioms and he'll catch her later. They're old friends and (sometimes) itch-scratching lovers. And that's just fine. They have the kind of sex you're expected to walk away from when something better comes along. The kind your best man can joke comfortably about when you marry the one you walked away for.

When Booth stops her at the elevator, Cam turns back, already giving him away with a grin, "Temerance Brennan," she says.

And in the present, Brennan says, "Me." And she's sweet, smiling and innocent as a bride in white. Sweets can't help smiling with her even though he's still so totally annoyed.

We zoom over to the Time and Place they first met. She's lecturing about de-fleshing and preserving and patience. She is not what he expects. So much so that he … walks right down the aisle toward her in the middle of a lecture? Booth! Manners much?

So he asks her a question to draw attention to himself because, I guess, he's so far into the throes of love at first sight (or something) that it's totally escaped him that the aforementioned walking down the aisle in the middle of her lecture probably already did the trick. So he asks his question and she answers that destroying flesh does not destroy but reveals evidence. Then the bell rings because this college may not come equipped with a laugh track to let you know when something's funny but it does have a bell to clue you in when something important has just been said. Seriously, that's the only reason I can think of for it to be there because what the heck kind of college has a bell?

Booth asks another question. And really, both his questions are totally rude. He's the kid that comes into a lecture late and tries to score participation points by stupidly questioning the professor on issues he only thinks are valid because he was late and missed the first half of the lecture.

But she's not annoyed then because she's the best in the world and thus used to stupid people. And she's not annoyed now because he's no longer one of the guys who ask stupid questions. Okay, sometimes he's still one of those guys. But he's also the guy, the only guy, who anticipates her sentences and shares her inside jokes. Hell, she may be the best in the world at bones but she only knows what an inside joke is because of him.

In fact, she tells him she's the best in the world and, poor Booth, there's no laugh track to help him out.

She says, laughing: He thought I was being humorous.

He defers: But it turns out to be true.

She grants: But you didn't know that yet.

He's the guy she makes excuses for.

In the past they exchange titles and there's a kind of sizzle already. They both might as well be wearing cocky belt buckles. Or, the way they look at each other, removing cocky belt buckles.

"Do you believe in fate?" He asks and it's so totally a line. Like, he might as well ask her if it hurt when she fell from heaven. Or, better yet, ask her how much a polar bear weighs. Granted, she'd probably know the answer and that would ruin everything.

But she says, "Absolutely not. Ludicrous." And something changes.

Back in the present it's still changed. He's not so slimy and she's not so stilted. He still believes in fate. She still doesn't.

Sweets still believes they're completely insane. But he believes that because he still believes they're totally in love. So we'll forgive him.

And then it's time for the credits.


	3. There's Something About Gemma

Disclaimer: See part 1

Note: It occurs to me that this might be a little tough to follow if you don't, you know, have the episode memorized. So. You guys are troopers. Thanks ever so much for your kind reviews. I'm doing my best to get it all out to you by Thursday.

**[3] There's Something About Gemma**

Booth doesn't tell Brennan the victim's identity even though, in the retelling, the girl's name was the first thing out of his mouth. There's a reason for this that has to do with him and a reason that has to do with her but neither of those is one of the reasons they give Sweets.

He didn't really think she was making a joke when she said she was the best in the world. She could have said she was the world's fastest knitter or had made it around the world in 80 minutes. With her looking at him like that, he was willing to believe most anything she said.

So he believed she was the best forensic anthropologist. He just had no idea what that meant for his case. The claim is just something on the surface, something in the flesh. And all the good evidence is on the bone.

The other thing is about Booth the Gambler. No one's luck is like his. No one's intuition comes close. This is why he plays pool, this is why he tells Cam he won't take on a partner. "Best in the world" doesn't mean much to him. Yet. So first he needs to see some magic.

In the lab there's Zach, alive and hilarious. He confidently states that the remains are less than two-hundred years old. We laugh but Brennan doesn't. "We have to shift the paradigm," she explains.

And Zach's immediately offended. I mean, I know you're busy laughing at poor, befuddled Zach but you'd be pretty pissed too if someone told you to shift _your_ paradigm. "What does this FBI agent want?"

But Brennan's already answered that. He wants a paradigm shift. He wants to shift them. Shake them. Pull them all out of the comfortably dead past and plunk them down a hair's breadth away from the present. From life.

He wants to know if they can look at who the dead girl was to figure out who she is. He wants to know if it's something they can do, derive a whole from a summation of parts.

So Zach changes shape and filters out the relevant details. Age, gender, trauma.

Hodgins, eating, approaches the bench. He's different. His eyes are sharper, his hair is awful. He's never missed lunch for work before.

We only start to realize how strange and alien modernity is to them at the startled look on Hodgins's face. "I'm taking the clothes," he declares, feeling the thrill of urgency in his work for the first time _ever_.

Brennan snaps at him not to be so unpleasant and he's got a whole bag full of retorts that end in Zach kicking him out and Hodgins taking the clothes. We're a little thrown because, much as I love her, Brennan was the one who started by speaking in the B-I-T-C-H voice, not him. So it kind of jumps out, that exchange. It should. It's a reminder that the paradigms have only begun to shift. She's never heard him excited before, only unpleasant. So it's not really her fault. It's not anyone's fault. Mostly they're still who they've always been.

Also. He might need to get laid.

On her way to find me, Brennan looks nervous. She's not used to sun or families or smiles. She passes juggler's who defy gravity and street magicians who make things disappear. She's nervous about finding me there. She's not used to magic and here it's for sale. So she grounds herself immediately by tossing tact out the window. "This is not a good likeness."

"No this is accurate, actually," I say. And okay, we're playing this subtle but I'll tell you right now that I'm pretty sure this is why _I'm_ the narrator. And: "This is very accurate." .

See, a long time ago Aristotle wrote, "The whole is more than the sum of its parts." And then more recently (you know, sometime in the last two hundred years) a guy named Max Wertheimer came along and said a bunch of things that amounted to, "the whole is _different_ from the sum of its parts." What is seen is what appears to the seer and that is not necessarily the same thing as what is actually there.

But that's Gestaldt theory which is psychology so Brennan has no use for it. So she says, "In reality, his nose looks like a yam."

And I really can't sit there and explain it to her because she's really bad for business. Hey, girl's gotta eat. _And_ get back to Paris.

So I take a break from funding Paris for a fudgsicle and a chat with a new friend. That's something you can do when you're your own boss and it's all part of my paradigm, fudgsicles and fantasies. And not to go all angsty on you but I think it's worth mentioning that this is how you know that paradigm shifts also suck and not everyone's _always_ better for Booth entering the scene. I mean, when's the last time I got to eat a fudgsicle at the Jeffersonian?

Yep. Brennan shows me the skull and there's the paradigm shift. We have to meet in the middle, near the tourists and amongst the shadows. On a park bench.

I throw away the fudgsicle.

Brennan talks about murder and it's gross. Both things: the murder and the way she talks about it. Skull-crushing related objectively. And because I'm good at what I do, because she sees enough science in my magic, she wants me to go to that gross place with her. She wants me to trade Paris for D.C., sunlight for the fluorescent light of the lab.

She also wants to pay me.

"I'm in!"

Like I said, out here magic's for sale.

Back at the office Cam's found Booth's paperwork. We know it's a hopeless case because of the cardboard box. It's the kind of box that ends up, mislabeled, in someone's attic. Lost and forgotten like the Christmas tree stand, or Aunt Selma's prom dress, or the bones of Brennan's mom.

Booth tells Cam he's kept Gemma's identity a secret. Cam catches on quick. She calls him a Gambler to his face but it's for us, like the bell in the college, because really, Cam dearest, it only counts if he says it.

He'll say, _Hi, my name is Seeley and I'm an addict. _

And we'll say, _Hi, Seeley! _Because we're always on his side.

On the way to the elevator, Cam plows into Brennan and it's ugly. How's that for a fun little inversion of foreshadowing? Years after the fact we get to smirk and remember how it's going to go between them.

Cam apologizes, Brennan talks mores. Cam takes it as an acceptance of her apology even though it's pretty much exactly the opposite of acceptance. Which totally throws Brennan off because A) it was _pretty much the opposite of acceptance _and B) his nose looked like a yam and C) she never had much time for Aristotle (not to mention psychology) so she's best at bones but hopeless when it comes to sums and wholes.

Cam's better. She's puts together pieces and sees what she sees or sees what she wants.

See: "Hey, you're Dr. Brennan!" Yeah, give Cam age, gender, and some trauma at the elevator and she'll give you a name.

But that's enough of Cam for now. Brennan's got somewhere to be.

Brennan has a list for Booth. She has age, gender, trauma, birthplace, hobbies. She has everything but a name.

He stares at her, seeing a seer. He wonders if she has his case file up her sleeve.

She shows him a picture. He sees hope. And his jaw drops.

His paradigm shifts.

She's still working on her own shift. She's still stepping closer to now, closer to life. He has to remind her about gloves.

Booth doesn't have an office yet so they watch a video in a nice, warmly-lit … interrogation room? Or …? The table's not big enough for meetings of any respectable size. I mean, I guess the boss could drag you in amongst all that scary wood-paneling and give you a stern talking to in private. And I know Booth doesn't have an office yet for that kind of thing but you'd think _someone_ at the FBI probably has an office.

Well, there's an abandoned coffee mug on the TV stand so this must be the room they serve coffee and donuts in when you visit the FBI on a day trip. Whew. Glad we cleared that up.

Anyway, on the TV is the girl from my sketch. Yep, there's a video of her. And it's completely and utterly useless to the case. See, it's not about the case, it's about her.

And she's my kind of girl. A preposition girl. She doesn't waste time on the noun, on who killed her or why. She's all about what happens before death and until death and despite death.

Booth says, "Just watch."

_make everything so simple in a crazy world,_

_ and I'm tryna find the words to say,_

_ you make everything alright just by being around_

_ boy you make me wanna sing_

The song is called "Mmmm" and it starts just like that, right in the middle of things.

Booth and Brennan watch her sing. They're moved without really knowing why. There are almost tears in Booth's eyes. What she's singing, the way she's singing it … Booth wants that. Brennan's calmly impressed. She doesn't know what _that_ is yet so she can't want it.

And we're moved too because it really sucks that Gemma's dead. Extra sucks. Because they've only just figured out who she was back then when which was when she was alive and _already_ singing about who they would be.

Brennan recognizes the flesh of her. "She's bears a marked resemblance to the sketch I gave you."

She does.

Booth's seen enough magic from her now. "Gemma Arrington," he admits and proceeds to list all the ways Brennan was right.

"She was the murder victim?" Brennan asks almost casually. Like he might have shown her a video of a girl who looks eerily like the victim sketch just for fun. But she has to ask. She's just been moved without knowing why. She'd really be more comfortable getting back to the noun.

Booth apologizes for the deception but Brennan's not upset. In fact, she kind of likes that he tested her. "Obviously I passed with a lot of colors."

"Excuse me?" He's understandably confused because _huh?_

Eventually he figures it out. In spite of her attempt to explain. He realizes it for the first time here: she's best at bones and worst at a lot of other things. Use of idioms is one of those things.

"Flying colors," he corrects gently.

"Yes. I know." Humility is another.

They talk about catching the killer and Brennan trips on the word bastard and Booth graciously pretends not to notice. He's already learning.

He flashes a picture of a guy in robes next to a flag. "I guess you know who that is, right?"

Nope.

"Judge Myles Hasty. That's a Federal judge," he says helpfully.

Brennan doesn't know because she doesn't keep up with events more current than the Industrial Revolution. There's a little pause while Booth shakes his head so you can go ahead and snicker.

But if you do, it's only because (like I said before) you're used of siding with Booth. You laugh because her world is so oddly and arbitrarily narrow. But how narrow is _his _world that he thinks a person should be able to name a judge on sight? Shoot, I mean most of us would struggle if shown a picture of a Vice President.

So Brennan gets a first look at the judge. Then she gets a first look at Booth's gut. Metaphorically. Duh.

It goes something like this:

Booth knows it was the judge.

So why isn't he in prison?!

Well, he doesn't have any proof.

So how does he know?

He just _knows._

So, naturally, she's totally horrified. She won't sentence a man, change a life, on a feeling. But she'll help him find the truth. "First the truth, then the catching." First the truth.

"It seems like someone like you could benefit hugely from an association with someone like me." Brennan says.

He laughs and-

But _woah_.

Brennan?

Who would have thought she'd be the one to figure out how they fit together?

There it is for the first time. Guts clash with facts. Booth meets Brennan.

So, it's about time for a commercial break.


	4. Punchdrunk Judge

Note: Duuuuude, they were really stingy with the commercials here so this one's really long. Thanks for all the encouragement. You guys are awesome. To the anonymous reviewers, I'm sorry I can't respond to your specific comments. To the person who asked about the logistics of this thing, hulu is my friend. Also, if nothing else, being a waitress gives me a super-power memory and good attention to detail.

**[4] Punch-drunk Judge**

"So this all happened a year before the Cleo Eller case," Sweets prompts, returning from, where, the bathroom? Sure, Sweets. I mean Booth and Brennan were totally happy to pause in the middle of this kind of awkward session for your bathroom break. Thanks for returning at your earliest convenience.

Also, thanks for reminding us of the timeline. Commercials _are_ long and you had to pee and it's not like we've been waiting to hear this story for so long that we're, like, hanging on every word or anything.

"Almost to the day," says Booth.

"Actually it was thirteen months, minus a week," corrects Brennan.

And that's them. Right there. They might round things differently, measure with different systems, but they both know _precisely_ when they first met.

But Sweets is all stuck on the way they're correcting each other while they sit in his office, here and now. So he can't really believe that they didn't argue back then. He reminds them that they did some really offensive things. Like calling evidence _crap._

Brennan calmly points out that she was forcing Booth to deal with things way beyond his experience and usually that makes people react badly. Sometimes they act rudely. Sometimes they cry. Sometimes they just develop potty mouth.

But Sweets is really agitated. He keeps baiting them like they might change their minds, like maybe they really were angry back then and they're just covering for each other. Which is totally something they would do. So Sweets is really pushing the issue because he's watched the tension between them for years now, the passion of their arguments, and if they weren't _fighting_, then ….

"We were feeling each other up," Brennan tries again. Like honeymooners.

"_Out_," Booth can't help smiling. He corrects her (even though he doesn't really want to). "We were feeling each other _out_."

And that's why Sweets can't quite believe they didn't fight back then. Because they still argue (a little) and she still can't do idioms (sometimes) and parts of them are still who they always were.

"Would you like to hear the rest of the story?"

Most of Sweets's body is completely exhausted by this whole thing and sinks into his chair but his hands are on our side, wrists snapping impatiently. _Obviously_, they say and, _duh_.

So Brennan narrates Hodgins for a while. She didn't know him well and … it's all in the way she says, "spores." Which is already a gross word and she really tortures it. Spooooores. That's how difficult he was, that's how much she didn't want to work with him.

"But," she says and Hodgins hops up like a kid to stand next to this giant vat of acid where Zach's dunking the parts of a skeleton. "He was the one who figured out that the remains were in a landfill …." And Hodgins is grinning and showing off a sliver of maple. He's already starting to be that guy. The one who's her best bet in a buried car. The one who's honored to have worked with her.

I know I mourned my fudgsicle before and all but here I have to point out that usually paradigm shifts are just what you need and most of the time, people are better for Booth coming into the picture.

Zach and Hodgins bicker and it's vicious. It hasn't become funny yet. They're still mostly who they've always been.

The three of them talk about the possibility of maple and boyfriends and baseball bats. It's an idea, says Zach, but it's probably wrong. Hodgins snaps a rubber band. "Doubts!" He proclaims like a diagnosis or a revelation. "I have doubts! I am doubt-_full_."

So, Brennan suggests (getting all saucy about it) they do an experiment. Hodgins and Zach, she suggests. _Together_. Brennan is their Camille Saroyan. (And, okay, whether you love her or hate her or don't harbor any feelings in particular toward her, now might be a good time to offer up a little prayer of thanks that Cam is a better judge of character than Brennan. Booth and Brennan aren't exactly in the throes of bliss maybe, but at least neither one of them has become a serial killer. So. It could be worse is what I'm saying.)

"Whoa!" Says Hodgins. Zach makes that face. Brennan smiles, still saucy. And it would all be funnier if I wasn't so distracted by the fact that _no one_ is wearing goggles next to the _giant vat of acid_. Seriously. There could be splashing! This is not like touching skulls with your bare hands, which, however yack-worthy it may be, doesn't put you in immediate danger of losing an eye.

So I'm pretty relieved when we leave the lab for the FBI bullpen (even though it's a place where random old-guy extras do things like try to make copies with the copier lid open). Brennan's hair is down because both things have happened: time has passed and she's moved forward. Already. A little.

Booth's brought Gemma's "baseball-playing boyfriend" in for questioning because he likes alliteration even though he _knows_ the guys didn't kill her. And you're right Booth, if police _only_ questioned the actual killers and no one else it would be very practical and save everyone a lot of time. Also, one of the requirements for FBI school would be "being psychic."

"Feeling isn't knowing," Brennan explains. "When you know something you can argue facts. Not merely make insupportable claims in a passionate tone!" Which is hilarious because Booth does that _all the time_. And it usually works for him. And there's no distracting vat of acid.

"You said _that_ in a passionate tone," Booth says, somehow managing to turn it back on her without sounding childish. Brennan's face does all kind of aerobics. She's totally confused. What facts was she supposed to have? The fact that he doesn't have any facts? They already established that and he still insists on talking at her passionately. So … whatever. She'll let it go. And that's why passionate speech works for Booth. It's usually easier to just go with him.

"Then why are you interrogating the boyfriend?" Brennan asks.

Booth steps closer. "Because I want to convince you." Suddenly it's very sexy in here.

He's like the guy in the bar who finally found the girl his usual line won't work on.

_Do you believe in fate?_

_ Absolutely not._

"Ahh," she drawls, staring at his mouth because she heard the Freudian slip. _Convince_ said quickly like that, heard with enough anticipation, sounds a heck of lot like _kiss_. "That's very kind."

She wants to come in with him and he agrees and they're inching closer the whole time, debating cooking terms that are really interrogation terms, fighting which is really flirting.

They have Gemma's boyfriend in the interrogation room. You'd think they could have brought him to that nice wood-paneled one since Booth knows he didn't do it. But they have him in one of the standard dark and scary ones. He talks about falling apart when the woman he loved was murdered. He speaks passionately but also factually. His proof is in his father, three uncles, and four cousins. He's got his whole family there to back him up.

Also, he did great at his try-outs which is the part Booth really wants Brennan to hear. He kind of grins about it while that poor guys starts falling apart all over again. And Booth you're really lucky that Hodgins's maple sliver called for this interrogation because if you put this guy through all of this _again_ just to prove something to Brennan, I'd be tempted to say you used to be kind of a shitty human being.

Booth talks psychology. Brennan agrees from her own angle. "Anthropologically, males are programmed to feel like the protectors of their mates." It's a principle, a generalization she's comfortable with. It's not right in every case but it's right in this case.

Brennan tells the boyfriend that this emotional torture was completely unnecessary. Which, of course, is the kind of thing that makes emotional torture even worse. But the boyfriend is a positive thinker and a very reasonable guy and we're very sad for him and for poor Gemma because they probably would have been a really nice couple. He would have gone pro and she would have sung the anthem at his first game with proud tears in her eyes.

Instead he's here crying in an interrogation room. And it's not even the nice wood-paneled one.

Yep, things are feeling really tragic. But Hodgins and Zach are to the rescue with a special scientific fat suit and a baseball bat. Hodgins clubs Zach across the chest and shoulder which, Brennan points out, would totally have done some bone damage. And they would have noticed that. Duh.

She wants to hit Zach in the liver even though Booth's convinced her it wasn't the boyfriend who was responsible for the maple sliver. So maybe be just figures Gemma pissed off some other guy who carries around a wooden baseball bat. Or she also wants to hit Zach in the liver.

So she whacks him and knocks him down then stands over him and talks about how the hit would definitely have killed him if not for the fat suit. Because of the fat suit, Zach lies there helplessly like a flipped turtle (which is still a step up from dead) while they debate the merits of whacking him in the head.

Deciding against it, Brennan and Hodgins walk away. In payment for passage from his position on the floor, Zach offers something interesting he found on the x-rays. And that's why Zach is the irreplaceable intern. In the lab, you only get somewhere with Brennan if you can find valuable clues and offer then in a timely manner. Zach gets that.

Having been rescued, Zach shows Brennan which bones aren't there: the three itsy-bitsy ones that are supposed to make up the inner ear. Brennan whips out a black light to check out the bones some more and I guess that's what the vat of acid was about since now that the bones are all bleached she can see a pattern of bones bruises. Ouch.

She asks Zach to measure the bruises. Zach goes to do what he told and he's down again. Poor Zach.

Then Booth and Brennan are at the scene of the crime and it's a different world for Brennan. It's all vaulted ceilings and chandeliers and whirling, frothing decor. "Gemma sang here for a group of hoity-toits," Booth says. Brennan doesn't know what that means. This place, this cathedral even has its own language.

Booth explains that it means Judge Hasty and asks what they're looking for. Brennan says to keep his eyes peeled for something maple and regularly spaced and capable of walloping a young woman almost to death.

He's like,got it. And: "You know, I'm really enjoying working with you, Bones."

So he has to explain nicknames to her and out of the explanation she surmises that she should call him, "Shoes." Except she says it, "Shoooes."

And he says it, "_Shooooes?!_" Both of which are awesome and hysterical and way better nicknames than "Bones." Yeah. If you couldn't tell, I'm really sad that the name didn't stick.

But it does leads to a conversation about individually which is, like, _really_ long. It is. It takes them three different staircases and the length of a theater just to get it started and by the time they get to the meat of it they're sitting, pretty much on each other's laps … somewhere. I guess they're tired from all those stairs.

She tells him about about mavericks and leaders distinguishing themselves from the herd. They're both leaning in and their eyes are lighting up. He's hanging on her every word with relish. They both want him to be that guy. "I'm a free thinking rebel." He is, he _thinks_ he is. And so does she. But she has to see it.

So that conversation ends and they decide to take a stroll in a dark hallway. "Are you seeing anyone?" Brennan asks.

Booth's not all afraid to let her know how surprising that question is. It's, "Wow, right to the point." Plus, aren't they supposed to be looking for something? Crime scene maybe?

He's seeing someone casually but she doesn't like his hours. And this could mean that she doesn't like him out gambling at all night or she doesn't like the hours it takes to get from D.C. to New York. Or maybe both. "You?" he asks.

She talks about a physicist who's been asking her out. She says, she's been thinking of saying yes. Like she doesn't really see a reason not too. And like she hopes Booth will give her reason not to. And that's something different. She's just met him and she's already thinking about choosing him, not alongside, but _instead_ of someone else. Prepositions.

He might keep bad hours. He might disappear for a long time to a dive bar like that other guy went to dive down to clean oil rigs but you don't get the impression here that Booth would be the guy on the side she fools around with when she's not out being intellectually stimulated by a sexless, Cold Play-loving scientist.

"I'd ask you out if I could," Booth says unabashedly.

He can't because of the rules. And he's still wearing a black belt, black tie, and black socks. There's no proof yet that he's the guy who bucks the system. Without proof that he's that guy, he's not that guy.

They're both adorably glad that the other regrets it a little--the fact that they can't be together. They can just say it, boldly, openly. It's not a secret or something to fear. It doesn't mean that much to them yet. It's not heart-crushing.

But it will be.

They find the very last set of stairs that they haven't been up or down yet. And this set is maple. They put the crime together quickly. She's really good at estimating things in the metric system. He's good at finding exits. Ta-da!

So I make these sketches to show what happens because other people are not as good at exits or the metric system. This includes Caroline, I guess, because she makes a random assumption about Judge Hasty swinging Gemma into a wall.

I correct her. Politely. And she wants to know who I am so I introduce myself. Politely. And then Booth introduces her. And if you think this is a weird time for introductions, you have no idea. Basically Booth snatched me up and told me to make a flip book and then had me flash it in the face of this woman at a desk. Meanwhile I've no idea who this woman is, I've never seen her before. Do I have to say it again, Booth? Manners much?

Brennan tells Booth to defend me instead of just defending me to Caroline herself. And Caroline just notices then that Brennan's in the room. She forgets people like Brennan almost immediately.

"Why?" Booth asks and that's something else he does a lot. Like talking passionately.

Caroline describes a squint on the stand and we all picture a fish or a worm or something else that might wriggle on a hook. Caroline's totally aware and unapologetic about the fact that she's going to forget Brennan. It's almost like she already knows she'll have to be introduced again in a year when Brennan gets into trouble in New Orleans. Maybe "being psychic" is also a requirement for Law school.

I'm a little flustered by Caroline's hostility. I'm really not used to people just being mean on principle. Usually they're only like that if I actually draw their noses to look like yams.

I continue with the flip book. We all see how the judge tackled Gemma and she fell. Booth says he must have thought she was dead. Because most Federal Judges are not smart enough to check to see if someone's breathing before loading that someone into a trunk.

"Why was he chasing her?" asks Caroline.

"Who cares why?" says Brennan. And if we were at the college the bell would ring. It'd be inconvenient because then we'd all clear out of Caroline's office before the conversation was over but at least we would know something important has been said. Brennan's not good at "why."

Caroline lists all the people who really, really care about why. And, sheesh, Booth just wants a warrant already.

"Maybe," Caroline says, "If this little stick figure thing was a computer …."

And I just stand there making faces, wondering why Booth didn't just say so because, um, I actually have a secret degree in computer programming.

No one knows cause of death either, as Caroline points out. And we really need to whip out the big guns to go up against the judge. She accuses Booth of jumping through all these hoops and stretching the case thin so he can have her office. "I'm not committing career suicide because you're cute and want a window," she says.

Booth hustles us out, all embarrassed, even though she's only right about one of those things. Well, maybe two. With his hair like that, Booth does kind of look like the sort of guy who could use a mirror but just wants a window.

I only have time to whisper to Brennan about the cute part before he rains on our parade with his plot to question the judge. Manners, Booth. Manners! He totally interrupts my girl talk with Brennan and then doesn't even invite me to the grilling.

Whatever.

They go back to the cathedral and meet the judge. Brennan spills about the murder scene right away. And the judge is a little sleazy the way he says, "I'm a very nice man."

Booth's all over that. He really doesn't like this guy. But the judge doesn't budge. He told Gemma she had a nice voice in front of a hundred witnesses.

"What didn't you do in front of a hundred people?"

Brennan translates his question to one about sexual impropriety which really annoys the judge because he already figured that out. So he already doesn't like Brennan and he doesn't even know that they think he's too stupid to check if someone's breathing or not.

They go through details of the crime and the judge kind of panics very calmly. He tells Booth that Brennan is making him look like an idiot. And Brennan really doesn't like that. That's her Booth. She's the only one that's allowed to sometimes think he's an idiot.

"Actually, I'm very intelligent."

"You could have fooled me," the judge says.

It's not just Brennan's eyes that narrow, it's her whole being. That's not the last straw for her, it's like _every _straw all at once. He's attacking her intelligence and it's the part that makes up most of her sum.

So she punches him. Whacks him right in the face with the blow she decided Zach didn't need. And Booth's all, "uh-oh" and concerned about the judge for a whole second. But by her second punch he knows it's already over so he just enjoys it.

"Is this very bad?" Brennan finally catches on.

But it's already over. Milk spilt. And Booth's not going to cry about it. "I've been wanting to do that for years," he says. So he's glad she just went for broke. "You are _so_ hot."

He's right but he sounds kind of ridiculous to us. We haven't been living with this thing growing in our guts for years now. Not like him. Judge Hasty isn't some sinister, vile being to us. He's just kind of sleazy. So we might know, but we don't really feel, that he deserved two punches to the nose.

So, "That's greeeeaat," Booth sings, rocking on his heels.

And we're like, "We'll get back to you after the commercial break. But no, honey, it's probably not."


	5. The Murder Man

**Note: **Two more parts to go by my commercial count. I'm really appreciating the continued support in your comments. The fact that you're all keeping it up is helping me stick to my "next new episode" deadline. So. Thanks!

Also, shout out to AmandaFriend who kindly pointed out that Zack definitely wasn't boiling the bones in acid. Clearly. Brennan would have taken that bat to him if he so much as breathed on the Bones after eating something as acidic as salad dressing. Ange was being dramatic. BUT I really do appreciate the fact checking. I'm a writing who really hates to, well, get stuff wrong. So, if in any of my stories, you come across something that doesn't gel with you, definitely point it out. Thanks AF!

_[5] The Murder Man_

Well. I'd tell Booth I was right but it looks like Caroline the Lawyer spent the commercial break already warming up. _He_ spent it A) driving over from the crime scene, then having to B) find a parking space _in D.C. _and then immediately C) getting chewed out upon returning to the bullpen. So it's understandable that he looks really unhappy. Though, that could also have to do with the fact that D) Caroline is attached to him like a Remora, and a really mean and feisty Remora or that E) she says he has to fire Brennan.

Right. I'm thinking the answer's E. Mostly.

Caroline calls him unrighteously cute and he assumes that's a compliment but he still not entirely sure and she's already moved on, alluding that Brennan's made him stray from good FBI procedure. And it doesn't even help that he's wearing the black socks, tie, and belt because he's not quite that guy yet, the one who usually doesn't. Brennan made him a rebel before he looked the part.

"It's not like that," says he.

"Of course it is!" says she. "Watching you together is like being at prom. But this is not high school, Booth!"

He nods, like, "Ooooooh right!" Which is hilarious. But I think he must be thinking, "What. The. Fudgsicle." Really. What the hell kind of prom did Caroline go to? One where each guy brought two dates, both of whom mostly just stayed silent when they weren't showing flip books or fighting just to get a civil introduction? Maybe. It could explain a lot.

"The beautiful scientist is fired! She just doesn't know it yet." Yeah. So Booth knows this thing about Brennan and it's kind of a big thing, it'll kind of change her life a little. But he doesn't know how to tell her and he doesn't think she's ready. So he'll sit on it for a while.

"Get her drunk first," suggests Caroline. So I guess she's still on the prom thing. And that'll last a few more years until she gets it of her system by way of mistletoe.

At the lab the squints are squinting at a skull. Zack whips out a telescoping pointer like he's the teacher all of a sudden. "I've been developing a chart of equivalencies," says Professor Addy. And he's bright and upbeat, there's this funky little rhythm to the way he's talking, like he's going to break into a mnemonic jiggle about deadly force. Sing it kids: "All-i-gator-bites have been mea-sured at two-thousand pounds-of-force …."

According to Zack's research (and Ms. Frizzle would be really proud here) whatever killed Gemma bit with a force somewhere between the capabilities of a human and a chimpanzee. Brennan's finally all upset that they boiled the bones in the giant vat of acid. There are two problems I see here: 1) Her concern is over evidence in the flesh instead of all the blatant not-wearing-of-goggles that was going on and 2) the giant vat of acid has once again become a huge distraction. I mean she completely neglects the fact that Gemma was killed by some mysterious thing that's between a human and a chimpanzee. Gemma was killed by the missing link! Big Foot _murdered_ Gemma!

Zack does Constipated Skeptical Face about evidence in the flesh. He hates paradigm shifts, our Zack does.

"We must adapt!" Brennan declares.

"Could I help?" I ask from the door. I can already see how that would have gone for them. This scene calls for a real magician.

I suggest that Gemma's head got slammed. You know, rather than bitten by Big Foot.

A door doesn't fit, Brennan points out because doors crush whole skulls and not just selected skull parts. "What if there were some kind of protuberance?" I suggest. A bolt maybe.

Zack says, "What? Like a sliding door."

"I don't know," I tell him. "I'm an artist." Conveniently, that excuse covers all sins. Like now. It explains why I can casually toss around words like 'protuberance' in conversation and still be baffled by the idea of a sliding door. It's because I'm _an artist._ Obviously.

Brennan suggests a car trunk and Zack does the math. It's like he has super powers. Seriously, Zack should have a math-doing theme song of his own. Really, it would increase the awesome about ten-fold. Plus, the theme song could be cleverly dropped into a minor key when Zack goes all serial killer.

Just for fun I give Zack a little math problem: "Can. God. Create a bigger rock. Than He can roll?" And Zack's utterly gob-smacked because that's definitely not a math problem and obviously he never took the time to read any amateur philosophy scribbled inside a college bathroom stall or he'd already be familiar with the question.

The next scene starts with a pool table and _uh oh! _You just know there's going to be trouble! which starts with _T_ which rhymes with _P_ which stands for _pool_. Except Brennan and Booth are perched on bar stools distinctly past the pool table. He made it past them without playing to sit with her. That's something. So maybe it'll just mean 'trouble.' No exclamation point.

"Drink up," says Booth. There's a bottle of tequila sitting between them. See above, re:trouble.

Booth exhales hard, either because he's a big wuss and is really suffering without some salt and lime training wheels or because Brennan's talking about the case and he's thinking about how he has to fire her. I'm not sure on this one. It could go either way.

Booth bans talking about the case. And, wow, they've made it, like, half way through that bottle already. Which is why Booth's kind of reeling on his stool a little when he draws her attention to his tie. On the surface it's not _that _different. It's a muted red with some intermittent splotches. But underneath there's this saucy little pin-up girl dangling a sweater. Oh yeah, she's got moxie.

"I am declaring my individuality," he says. "I am going rogue." That clarification was kind of him since she was probably wondering why he was conspiratorially showing her the underside of his tie. And the tie makes the most sense really because apparently, Cocky belt buckles are kind of rare and Booth probably hasn't had time yet to find someone who carries those stripy, girly socks in his size.

"You _have_ gone rogue," Brennan says, leaning in to supervise the pouring of the next shot.

Booth's impressed that she can hold her liquor. They salute the Bhang, the delightful fermented cannabis beverage, Brennan drank as a grad student. Booth's laughing, totally picturing her as a young, fermented cannabis lush. He doesn't know that Bhang's all about spiritual ecstasy.

"You're fired," he says adoringly, leaning on the bar. There are stars in his eyes.

She thinks it's because of the Bhang, like she's getting fired for an attempt at ecstasy. But it was only in pursuit of scholarly research! She never quite got there, it always broke first, always went smash. But she tried it enough times to build up a tolerance. Tried the same thing, again and again, hoping for a different outcome. "Why am I fired?" she asks like 'fired' is a state of being and one she struggles with almost as much as ecstasy.

Booth reminds her about that transient Judge-punching phase she went through. Which, though hot, definitely makes her fired.

So they drink again. Medicating instead of celebrating this time.

It's tequila, not Bhang, but for the moment it'll stand in just fine, give them permission to make an attempt at ecstasy. She recognizes the familiar build of it, the long, deliciously tortured climb toward bliss. She's been here before. Tried it again and again. And that's the definition of insanity but she's feeling a little insane to tonight so:

Brennan beckons him closer, making him come with just a finger. (Yeah. I'd say you have a dirty mind but it's just that kind of scene. So you get a pass. I'll take one too.) Brennan whispers, "If we don't work together anymore, we can have sex." Wow. Right to the point. She _does not_ get a pass.

"I'll call a cab," Booth says in this almost choked voice. There's suddenly less oxygen between them. He's utterly thunderstruck, halfway to ecstasy already.

Yeah, Booth, say hello to the rest of us.

Outside it's confession time. Booth has the floor but Brennan steals it. She thinks he's concerned about being a descendent of that _other_ Booth.

And we're like, _yes, Sweetie, most people make impassioned confessions about their heritage before embarking on drunken hook ups_.

But Booth's actually pretty concerned about it. Booth's the kind of guy who's guilty about a lot of things. And that's part of his whole addiction. When the stakes are high, you're not thinking about being related to a guy who shot someone and how that's part of you or about being the guy who shot a lot of someones and how that's most of you. But to get to that bar stool with her he walked right past a pool table without playing. It was a kind of triumph, really, but now that old guilt is kicking in.

So he says, "I have a gambling problem but I'm dealing with it." He says it with this kind of awful hopefulness. He knows it might be the deal breaker. He's not dealing with it but he _wants _to. Finally. This is his most important day. His first day clean (though definitely not sober). This is what she does to him:

_Hi, my name is Seeley and I'm an addict. _

_ Hi, Seeley!_

Brennan doesn't really get it yet. What she does to him. She's caught up in the build of it all. So she's half wondering and half flirting when she asks, "Why did you feel like you had to tell me that?"

"I don't know. I just feel like … this is going somewhere." And we already know a lot about Booth and his _feelings_.

And their voices are doing that sinking thing to balance the build. It's that thing that pulls another person toward you and it's why he feels like this is going somewhere.

He says, "I just feel like … I'm going to kiss you."

So he does. She kisses him back. And we've wondered what this would look like for so long long that we're not at all surprised that it's one of _those_ kisses. One that's not quite like any before it. One that just builds and builds and it's so good, so complete that you finally stop caring if it goes somewhere.

"You kissed," Sweets interrupts with hands that say, "Whoa!" It's like a prelude to a smash.

"Yes," Booth says, trying to break it to him easy and trying to overcome his annoyance that Sweets used a word as simple as 'kiss' for that thing that happened between them.

"There was _tongue_ contact," Brennan says. Which is her way of saying, it was so much more than a kiss.

If there was a wall handy, Sweets would run into it. As things stand, is eyes just roll up in his head and he sits. "My book is crap!" (Well, honey, Gordon Wyatt already told you that.)

"Well that's why we wanted to come here today," Brennan says. We didn't want to get any on us.

"How long did this affair last?" Sweets asks, still woozy.

Booth and Brennan look at each other and, guys, there's this gleam in their eyes. We'd believe anything about them right now. We'd believe there was an affair, that it was still going on, that they're secretly married and looking at real estate in the Yukon Territory. And Sweets is right there with us. In fact, he's wondering about the best time of year to visit Canada.

"Should we tell him?"

"Yes!" Wait, was that Sweets or did my voice just go a little masculine?

So it's back to the kissing, back to the place we paused on the way to ecstasy. They're smiling while they hold each other, they can't help it. It's all building, again and again.

Then the cab honks. Like a bell in a college. It doesn't belong there. It tells us something important's happened but it's time to go home.

Brennan walks away from him. They're still both smiling adorably when he says, "Wow" and she says, "We are not spending the night together."

"Of course we are! Why?"

"Tequila!" She says. _Bhang_! She's only ever had a scholarly interest in ecstasy. It builds and builds and then goes smash. Every time. And maybe she's not really on board for insanity.

He tries to joke with her at the cab window. He wants to know if she thinks he'll regret her in the morning.

"That would never happen," she says and waves good-bye. And she's right. Was right. In the past. Back then before it meant that much to them. She was right.

So. He's in trouble. Which starts with _T_ and rhymes with _P_ which stands for ….

But she goes home and so does he.

He doesn't know what else to do. They were half way to ecstasy and now he's half way to heart break. It's neither one nor the other.

But it will be.

Before the end. It will be.


	6. Their Hangover

**Note:** Down to the homestretch. Only one more to go. And it's _that _one. In the mean time, I bring you this odd little chunk of a section. Beats me why this part was so short. Must have wanted more opportunity to advertise for the Ford Windstar. But it's fine. This part was still all full of case activity and, for the next part, we don;t need that kind of distraction. See you again in a few hours ;)

_[6] Their Hangover_

Last night Brennan got fired, kissed her partner, and made a half-assed attempt at ecstasy. This morning she's paying for it all. But mostly the tequila.

The world is too bright this morning. It feels raw. She wonders if it will feel this way forever. She's not ready for it.

So. Naturally. We flank her and all try to talk at once. She's never really had that, people behind her like that. But she's too hungover for it to really sink in. It's too bright, it burns, this whole change thing. I'm trying to get her attention because they keep telling me to show up really early in the morning and then there's never anything for me to do. A sketch and flip book? Pssssh. I could have done that during a fudgsicle break. So. I made myself useful. Naturally.

She just wants coffee. Coffee is dependable and nostalgic and cathartic. And Zack has some so we're doing a little better now.

Hodgins is busy accepting the apology that she kind of made via Zack. And that's a nice little nod, a wink, that one thing is starting to go right. "Have I mentioned how excited I am to be working with you?" Hodgins asks me and that's not exactly something that's going right. Like, I've barely been introduced to _anyone_ and the whole place kind of grosses me out so of course the slime guy is hitting on me.

Yeah, yeah. My paradigm has to shift. Rub it in.

Finally getting Brennan's attention, I clue her in to all the parts Zack and I put together—the trunk, and the latch, and the valet—take those all together and the whole thing looks a lot like a mug shot of the judge. I'm pretty good at this whole crime fighting thing. I even throw in the phrase "gaping head wound." See! I'm _growing_ over here!

But: "We got fired," says Brennan.

What? What! _What? _We've been shocked right into stereo.

"Is this because you slept with Booth?" I ask.

"I didn't sleep with Booth. Why did you say that?"

And I'm like. Um. We were all thinking it?

And Hodgins is like, "Tequila vapors." See.

"What is happening?" Zack's about to scream and run into a wall. People keep shifting his paradigms, forward and back. Not everyone's always better for Booth coming on to the scene. But most of us are worse when he goes away again.

I lament Paris. So Brennan offers me a job and I accept even though she manages to make it sound steady and dependable and boring.

"You know, I've always wanted to go to Paris with an artist," Hodgins says flicking his eyes at me in a way he really needs to practice in a mirror before he tries again. On anyone. It's not even a good line. Granted, it's more honest than most lines. If I'd listened more closely back then I might have caught the implication that he's been to Paris. Most than once. And if I really listened hard I might have heard that he owns a chateau with an inspiring wine cellar and a hell of a view. Oh, well. Everything happens eventually, right?

Brennan puts on her bossy voice and sends Zack scampering over to the FBI with all our evidence. "We can all go back to our normal jobs." She snaps her sunglasses back down over her eyes.

"Ever feel like you saw something great that _almost_ happened, then didn't?" Hodgins shoves his hands into his pockets like he's short of a few bucks and a shot or two of Bhang.

I like him better. Already.

Over at the FBI (which is a place, I guess, like there's not an actual name for the building since we're always like 'over at the FBI) Booth is pretty much face-planted on his desk, staring at a glass of water like it might save him. It's the Catholic in him.

Everything's heavy. He feels sick. He wonders if the world will be this way forever.

Zack brings him the evidence in a handy little evidence box (good thing this wasn't one of those cases where the evidence was the water from an entire lake or something). So those two meet for the first time and there's some hostility on both sides. Zack's a squint. Like her. So that explains the rudeness of his end. And Booth's the guy who keeps insisting on shaking up poor Zack's paradigms and, frankly, he's tired of the tremors. He's a little seasick over it.

So Booth gets his evidence but at the same time Zack calls him, not stupid, but _immensely_ stupid. Which prompts him to then walk out quickly like all his vertebrae have been fused under Booth's glare. They don't take the 's' word well, our Booth and Brennan. At least Booth didn't hit him.

Cam comes in to further berate Booth but he distracts her with evidence and explains (because I guess neither the Jeffersonian nor the FBI gossip nearly enough yet) that, "Dr. Bones punched the judge right in the nose." And the way he says it is just a little childlike and you kind of get the impression that he's just decided to go ahead and get over this confusion he has about "Dr. Bones."

"They got the judge," says Cam

"They got the judge!" Oh yeah, he's over his confusion. He's totally in love with all of us.

Still Over At The FBI, but in an office this time, we see Caroline with her elbows on that conveniently sized box of evidence. She preemptivly complains about stick figures (hey!) and reminds them that it's a big no-no to go up against a Federal Judge if you have crappy evidence.

She yells at Cam about the evidence and she is like _the only_ person who can get away with yelling at Cam like that. You know, Booth's usually all Defender of Women in general but Caroline is his chivalric Kryptonite.

Then Caroline rounds on him and she knows all about his charm. So she's like _work your magic, Booth, _"Reassure me!"

So Booth explains, very reasonably, once again, that he just wants a freaking warrant. Cam backs him up with how little evidence they need, pronouncing her vowels very long. Which is probably some scientifically proven way of demonstrating how teeny-weeny evidence has to be. Or maybe that's just Cam.

"Did you fire the Jeffersonian yet?" Caroline says, coming back at Booth like a school teacher who's caught a kid sleeping.

"Of course," he says loyally.

"Hire it back," she says definitively.

"Okay." He's like yeah, ok, sure. And it's a good thing he's better at change than Zack or he'd be hella seasick all over Caroline right now.

Caroline tells them she'll get the warrant in an hour because she's scary and awesome, which is why they let her walk on them like that. Then she boots them out quick like Booth really did get sick in her office.

"You're back baby!" Booth says by way of greeting, busting through the door to Brennan's office. And he's all smug like he had anythig at all to do with it.

And, wow, that man just bounces back. Last night he was in limbo, he was all Dante plunked down right in the middle of something big.

Now he's the one who's _back_. Also, wearing the same tie. He must just have the one.

Brennan's decidedly less back. Actually, she's pretty annoyed. See, she just packed up everything in that conveniently sized evidence box and sent it Over to the FBI. She was done with it. She'd put it away and came back to her real life where everything is comfortably dead and no one baits her into shots at ecstasy.

And now there's Booth, popping out of the box all, back baby!, and chop-chop, and calling ancient remains a _monkey skull_. He's seizes command of the room and of her. Like what she used to do and who she used to be just doesn't matter. He's right in her face with all the parts of him she wasn't sure about in the first place: he's excitable and bossy and not her kind of smart.

And she could put up with that when it was just the one case and when she was fired from the one case and when it was just one night between passing strangers. She'd been relieved when it worked out how it did. The build had been there, alright. Then she'd said good-bye in the nick of time and avoided the smash.

But he came back.

So she's fuming, almost breathing smoke. And he's like, "Get your coat!"

Then it's Over to the FBI Chop Shop where the boys going all are Tony Stark on the judge's car. It's looks a lot like a parking garage and you have to wonder if our boys realize it'd be a lot easier to take the car to an actual shop than drag all their equipment to the parking garage Over at The FBI. I mean, since cars have wheels and all ….

Booth's taking care of some paperwork or something while Brennan stares off into the middle distance. "Something wrong?" He asks. _Finally._

I mean, isn't he supposed to be good at _people_? And Brennan's been making furious-fucking-mad faces ever since he showed up in his office. For once, she's _acting like people_! I guess it's the lasting effects of the Caroline Kryptonite. So, not his fault.

But Brennan doesn't know that. "I find I'm annoyed with you." Isn't it cute how she does that? Like, well I laid all the little pieces and parts of me out on the table, dumped them in a vat of acid, and checked them out with a black light and, know what I found? Annoyance! There it is!

My guess would be that she's pissed because he dragged her out to Ye Olde Chop Shop. I mean what are the chances that there are going to be extraneous bones lying around. Why is she there?

But Booth thinks it's about her being fired and re-hired so he totally blames it on the government. And if anyone else takes shots at the government he totally loses it and Brennan has to do tricks with pudding but Booth's allowed to say what he wants.

But she's still pissed so it doesn't work_ and_ there's no pudding. That's called a double whammy.

Actually she's figured out his plot to get her drunk before firing her. Also, before having sex with her.

He flips it back on her like he does. "Whoa, no. I got myself drunk so I could fire you because, right now, I'm still kind of wuss and didn't want to deal with firing the beautiful scientist. Then you decided not to have sex with me. Which I accepted gracefully after I stood in the rain staring off after your cab for like an hour."

Okay. Some of that I might have embellished a little. It's not easy to remember these long stretches of tense dialogue.

"So you regretting that decision?" Booth's trying to be cute but the man's really hung up on regrets. He has a lot already. You can tell by the way he's always joking about them.

Brennan says she stands by her decision and she's just refusing to get in on the joke. She doesn't regret the decision, she regrets that she almost didn't make it. She regrets that he almost brought her to that point and that she almost let him. She's regrets just how much she was lost in the build, how close she came to losing control. She's just waiting for the smash, knows it's coming. And that makes her angry. Angry and sad.

This whole scene feels all sorts of wrong and messed up. We're hungover, seasick, stuck in this awkward place between bliss and heart-break. And here, Booth's totally on our side. He already knows her well enough to know she doesn't act this way. "What's going on Bones?"

That really does it. "Don't call me Bones!"

See, it already feels too familiar, too permanent. She wonders if the world is going to be this way from now on. She taught him how to be a rebel and now he's broken out of the box she had him in. A rebel's has a place in anthropology. You can always count on rebel to do just that, rebel. But Booth's already becoming something different. Something to her. Something dangerous.

The Chief FBI mechanic (as designated by the official FBI backward cap) tells Booth that the car's pretty much been gutted and everything replaced. Almost like someone wanted to cover the fact that he'd been driving around with a body in there.

Brennan wants to give the squints a stab at it and Chief Mechanic's all offended which results in Brennan backhandedly calling Booth stupid. And that's the third time that's happened to him in like three commercial breaks so I'll forgive for the fact that he retaliates by insulting Zack.

Brennan starts making demands and Booth tells her she's bring rude which results in some fairly creative bickering and they're all quick on their toes with:

"Get a soul!"

"Get a brain!"

And if they could only dig up some courage they could skip off down the Yellow Brick Road or into that Yellow Cab and then it would have been even odds between the Emerald City and ecstasy.

But that's not the way it went.

Instead, Chief Mechanic found an ear bone and even though those things are super fragile, it's still intact. Which is why Brennan needs to run some tests. And Booth wants to skip that part because even though he thinks Hasty is evil and a moron, he doubts the guy collects ear bones as a hobby.

Brennan blows that popsicle stand and Booth can't do anything to stop her. So he arrests the judge instead.


	7. When Seeley Met Tempe

**Note:** So I really thought I could hit my dead line. Then I realized two things: A) I had a lab practical to pass and B) I had about 2,000 words of notes just for this section. Which is only like seven minutes of film. _Oye. _But. This is it. If you've been waiting, I guess this is the one you've been waiting for. Though, it's going to end like you think.

Thank you, immensely, for the continued support throughout this week of rather intense story-telling. To those of you who have reviewed or PM'd suggesting another episode of Angela narration I can confidently say that I like the idea of another one for some really great episode but also that it won't be soon. So thank again for all your support with this one. Wish you all the best. Nyah.

**_[7] When Tempe Met Seeley (and decided first names weren't the way to go)_**

Welcome back to the present! Try not to be concerned that our host, Dr. Sweets, looks like he's seeing the business end of his own tequila hangover. A good shrink has empathy, right?

So Booth offers Sweets a glass of water with, like, his whole body. Seriously. He stretches out completely, Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam" style, and they're frozen there for a second. Like an oil painting. Like forever.

It's decent of Booth really. Water is always a place to pause. It's a little plain maybe, not always the right temperature. But it's the thing you need when coming back from tequila, Bhang, a shot at ecstasy. Whether you succeed or not. Water's like life that way, I guess. It's the thing we do in the time between.

"It's like you two missed your moment and then you punished each other for it," Sweets says, trying out every available surface of that chair.

I don't know about you but I'm a little confused about _when _he's talking about here. Does he mean that little bit of snippiness we just saw at the Chop Shop or is he just really annoyed that they've spent the past five years solving murders instead of mattress dancing? Because, Sweets, honey, you work for the FBI. You're not supposed to _complain_ about them solving murders.

In fact, the FBI's probably going to be really peeved if this little session throws them off their murder-solving game. I mean I'm sure that have a pool going on Over At the FBI (just like they must in half the work places in the DC area) about when these two are going to do the deed. But they still have to be more concerned about murder solving. At least on paper.

"You know who has to pay the price?" Sweets does the "this guy" thumb-jerk at himself. And I guess that's a little more logical than what _I _thought. Which, in case you're wondering, was that Dr. Goodman's tenure depended on a certain quota of hanky-panky going on between Booth and Brennan by a pre-determined point and when that failed to happen he was executed by firing squad.

Anyway, the way Sweets is acting, someone must being facing a firing squad because he can't be in this much of an I-might-pass-out-or-vomit-at-any-second snit over a book no one ever asked him write in the first place.

So Sweets pulls a pillow out from under his tuchus and finally starts to get that he needs to just calm the heck down. "Okay, what happened next?" His hand urges him on like they can just yadda through the rest so he can go be properly ill already.

Back to the case (are we still on this?). Caroline, Brennan, Booth, the judge, and the judge's lawyer are all crammed into the crappy interrogation room. Brennan's sitting very stoically. She's only there in case Booth screws up.

It's going well.

In the present, Booth talks lies and Brennan talks facts. But what they're both getting at is truth.

"But I didn't know _why._" Booth does that thing a person does when commenting about spices in food or the bouquet of wine. _Why_ is a taste on his tongue.

"Booth is obsessed with why people do things," Brennan says, kind of poking fun at him. Because they're different know and she can join in the joke.

Booth just ignores her because it was a really big deal to him, he was all caught up in the build of the case. He can feel it, even now. But he just couldn't figure the judge out.

So Brennan figures it out, why he chased her, why she fell. If there hadn't been all those layers of flesh in the way she would have gotten it sooner. Immediately.

It's all in the way he touches his nose (which must be different from the way a twice-punched person touches his nose).

"It had to be something that would have ruined his career," says she.

"But also destroyed his judgment," says he.

Somewhere, a bell goes _ding!_ And the case wraps up so we can go home.

It was drugs. Cocaine maybe, or crystal meth. Something that went smash. Some failed attempt at ecstasy. Doomed from the start. The result was an unconscious girl and a judge too stupid to see that she was breathing.

He just wanted to stop her, he says. Reason with her. Offer a bribe.

But she ran.

And that was that.

So in the here and now Brennan assures Sweets the judge is in jail. And Booth's all, "Sorry about your book." Like he still doesn't know why it's a big deal. Like, why doesn't Sweets just change the names to Kathy and Andy and sell it an a fun, fictional meta-analysis. Hell, maybe someone would actually read it.

But Sweets is having none of it. He's like, F-you professionalism and f-you patients. "What happened between the two of you?"

This:

They argued. He grabbed her. She hit him.

She hates the way he intimidates and he bullies and he's like her father. She hates that he's here right now and that that doesn't mean he'll be here tomorrow.

She's not who she's going to be yet. She hasn't had a best friend. She hasn't turned down a chance to live wide. She hasn't killed or seen him kill for her. She hasn't sat by his bedside and typed a better life for them both.

She hasn't done any of those things. So she swears she'll never work with him again.

He hates that she can make him feel stupid and she can act like a child all at once. He hates how easily she walks away.

And he's not quite who he's going to be yet either. He hasn't gone to the end of his rope to pull her out of the sand. He hasn't joined the circus. He hasn't beaten an addiction and boxed in Vegas anyway. He hasn't threatened to kill for her or made good on the threat. He's not our Booth. He's not wrestling with the angels yet.

So there's this gap between who they are and who they'll have to be. They're wedged in it, stuck between heart-break and bliss.

It cracks open. It goes smash.

"You struck him?" Sweets asks. He's uncomfortable with the term 'bitch-slap.'

"I shouldn't have grabbed her," Booth says immediately, automatically. Apologizing, unnecessarily, for who she used to be.

"We're sorry about your book," Brennan says in a tone of dismissal. (She also said 'we' and if this wasn't a preposition story I'd be going on and on about the sexiness of pronouns.)

Sweets tells them they're totally messed up. Official diagnosis. "I've always said you could never kiss" (um, to whom Sweets? I don't think you ever had that conversation with _me_ over fudgsicles. I mean, it's bad enough you didn't give me a red manuscript binder, gosh) "because then the dam would break. Did the dam break?"

The answer should have been 'yes' but Booth gets the question wrong. It's not his fault. Sweets didn't really now what he was asking either.

"He still thinks that we slept together," Booth whisper-translates.

"We're not in love with each other," Brennan says.

Booth's face is pained. It's painful. Like he just took a swift kick in the balls. I mean, that wasn't even the question Brennan and you still sprung it on him.

Brennan, all inept innocence, reminds us that it took them a year to be in the same room together. (Not after the kissing, mind you, after the smashing.)

And Booth clings to that, pulls himself up by it. It's true after all. It's a nice steady time in their history, that year when they tried to forget each other. Definitive. Like water. The thing we do between attempts at ecstasy.

But Sweets is still pushing. He wants to know why they haven't been in serious relationships. Each one delivers the usual reasons.

So Sweets tries another angle. He talks about courage. He's getting there, our Dr. Sweets, he knows that somewhere there's a Yellow Brick Road.

He calls Booth out, heart-of-a-lion Booth who's so often miscast as the Scarecrow. "It's gotta be you because you're the Gambler!" Well. At least he gets how messed up and insane that is. He says, "For once, make that work for you."

And wow. Sweets just gave him an entire meal to chew on. Which gives him an idea. "Something to eat?"

"I could eat," Brennan says.

And together they bolt.

Sweets tosses the manuscript. Smash.

(Carl Sandburg pops in, textually, to remind us all about things that start in dreams. That's nice. But he's also the guy who wrote, "The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring." And I just don't trust that. So, I'm going to take him with a great of grain salt. Maybe throw in a lime for good measure.)

Outside, they've escaped. They're talking about all the other things wrong with Sweets's book. Which are, incidentally, all the things wrong with them. It's getting warmer in DC these days. Things are growing again. There's a riot of new, a ruckus of life. The cherry blossoms are already in full froth and boil. It's a little much to be taken in all at once.

They can feel it all in the background as they head down the stairs, walking down together. There's no escalator, no outside force to carry them up. They're different people from the ones in the story. They built up and went smash and put themselves together. Better.

They've escaped. But only parts of them.

Booth's head and his heart are still back inside, still listening to Sweets's words. So he stops short like he's run into a wall and tries to make sense of it all. "I'm the gambler," he says like it's a revelation. But she hears:

"Hi, my name is Seeley and I'm an addict."

And we say, "Hi Seeley." Because we're always on his side. Always. Like everyone is. And where does that leave her?

And it's cute for a second. Like, okay, we'll use gambling as a positive metaphor just for the sake of being different and because the baby shrink said so. He's trying to say that the gambler is the guy who just goes for it, who can't help himself.

There's a reason it's not usually used as a positive metaphor, gambling, and most of that reason is the whole addiction thing. But it's different with him, different this time. When you gamble like Booth, on eight-balls and corner pockets, you're gambling on yourself. And that's nice. He's putting himself in the game and going for it.

But you're the only one really in the game. When you gamble like Booth, there's a word for you: shark. You don't play against the impregnable House. When you win, someone else loses. There's a victim. You don't just gamble, you swindle. So you'll have to forgive Brennan if she gets nervous. There are sharks circling.

"I believe in giving this a chance." _Believe_,do you Booth? Are you _trying_ to stack the odds against her? "I want to give this a shot."

So her face goes through more emotions than it has in about a year, ever since he woke up. She tries to laugh because she doesn't get it. Then every muscle just closes down. Because she does. "You mean us?"

There's less oxygen between them. His heart is in his throat. It makes it hard to move.

His nod is so delicate. The tiniest of evidence. But totally unmistakable.

The build doesn't feel like Bhang this time or tequila. It doesn't feel like she's building toward something but falling into it. The build to ecstasy feels a lot like a drop, feels a lot like terror.

She says, "No the FBI …."

But she's already ruined his judgment so he doesn't care a thing about the career. He just wants to reason with her. He kisses her instead.

For just a second it's soft, timid, and going somewhere. For just a second they're the people they were and are and are going to be. She can see it so, _so_ clearly, the decision she doesn't make. Even as she's shoving him away:

It's right there behind her eyes. She's seeing herself pulling him close instead, no fingertips on the shoulder, no soft or timid here. She's seeing fisted cotton and gulping breaths and _get it girl!_

She sees the next morning, waking up a little too warm, waking up like a child, a little damp with sleep sweat. She'll turn over and there he'll be, stretched out on his back. She'll curl into him, hand on his chest, then head, then legs twining with his. It'll feel more like rest than sleep ever has. Well, it will right after he settles again. He sleeps precisely, stretched out on his back, like a Ranger, and he sleeps warmer than she does. So her sudden, cold hands will wake him a little too quickly.

But just as quickly he'll peer down at her through a cracked eyelid and he won't be able to help his smile. And she won't have to look up to see it because she's wearing it already. So she'll listen to him sigh contentedly and she'll shift so he can loop an arm across her back. She'll listen to the inner workings of his body, the rumbles and beats and breaths that are proof that he is alive and he is well. And while those two things are true he'll always be near.

And it's all so vivid that she's reeling with it. She's not quite sure which scene is really playing out. When this happened to _him_, he had the help of another narrator and some serious medication so it was all off, all a little wrong, all different enough that eventually he found his feet, figured out which scenes were real. Eventually he believed it was possible to wake up not loving her. Or that it had been once, anyway.

But for her, the possibilities are coming too close together. She recognizes the familiar build of it, the long, deliciously tortured climb toward bliss. She's been here before. Tried it again and again. And she just can't be sure. Is she pulling him close or pushing him away? Saying yes or saying no? Has something changed or is it all the same?

She doesn't know.

She has to _know_.

She shoves him away. Like Sweets's hands, that say _Whoa!_ Like a prelude to smash.

"No!" she shouts insistently, desperately. Like a child trying to wake up. "No!"

"Why?" he asks, like always. "Why?" There are notes of coffee and cheery blossom in it. It's bitter and spicy on his tongue.

And she can't answer in a way he can understand. The answer to _why _is _because_, is a conjunction. There's subordination there. Dependence. And while they might both be conjunction people when it comes to cases, with each other they've always been preposition people. _With_ and _alongside_ and _near_.

She wants to protect him from herself. It's exactly the kind of thing they would do for each other.

But he asks her to just give it a chance. He asks her to let it build until it goes smash. They did it once already and it took years, _years_, but they're back. Together and separately, they're better than they were.

He talks about older couples. People who've been in love for 30 or 40 or 50 years. People who sit together with a blanket around their frail little shoulders and get interviewed at the end of _When Harry Met Sally_. Maybe interviewed by someone like Sweets. But. They've already done that.

"It's always the guy who says, 'I knew'." I knew.

She shakes her head.

Looking at him, she's been here with him before. It was a long time ago and they were different people then, bolder and a little sleazier. It's not when you think.

They were so close and he kissed her and warned her he was a gambler because he thought it might go some where. And it almost did. It _really almost did._

Yeah, I don't mean that time. It's not when you think.

The time I mean, they were Tony and Roxie. He was up against a big, muscle-bound bruiser and she fronted the money, playing the stake-horse. The bet took both of them to win, him to take and make the hits, her to show him the soft spots and tell him how to go at them.

Things are mostly the same this time around. He's the gambler, he's willing to take the hits, put himself on the line. He's not looking to shark, she's knows. She's not the opponent, not exactly. He just needs her to put in, to be the stake-horse. And to tell him where to hit and how.

Booth wants to give it a chance. But things aren't exactly the same this time. Like they're not exactly who they used to be. Because the thing he's up against, they're up against, is them, all their bad habits and deepest fears. And it's big and ugly and muscle-bound. It's been abandoned and abused and gone to war.

It's all the ugly parts of them that still make up the whole. For them to win, she'll have to aim him at all their soft spots. And he won't be able to go at them with fists and fury. He'll take her by the hand and take her apart, tear her open and himself too. They'll have to lay out everything that's inside. They'll have to make peace with who they've also been, embrace all the ugliest parts.

That's the other side of ecstasy, the other side of love. That's what it means to go smash.

"I am not a gambler," she says. "I am a scientist." The last thing she wants to do is go smash. The last thing she wants to do is win. "I can't change," she says, thinking it's true. "I don't know how."

During some pretty important years of her life, Brennan didn't have a mother. Ok, totally relevant, I promise. She didn't have a mother to ask about make up and kissing or how long a skirt should be. She didn't have a mother to cry to during her first heart-crush, or to ask for career advice, or to hug and squeal with when she got the big college envelope that says, "you're good enough for us." Mostly, she didn't have a mother to teach her how to go about this whole love thing.

And really, that's not a mother's job, even if you have one. But she didn't have one so she doesn't know. She doesn't know that she's not supposed to know how to do this. That learning to be in love means the same thing as being in love. That ecstasy is on the other side of the smash.

And in case your heart hasn't already broken and in case you're still, always, on Booth's side, think of it like this:

A lot of big, scary things are happening to her right now. He's telling her he wants her forever, just as she is. And isn't that what we're all supposed to dream about? But there are two things troubling her. The first is, there's a finality to love that she's not entirely comfortable with. And it has nothing to do with anthropology. She wants to be whole without being the sum of her parts. He loves everything about her. Everything. The way she just can't give in and how hard she fights. He loves the aloof face she puts on and how sure she is that everyone buys it. He loves that change doesn't come easy to her and that she works too hard and that most people will never really get her.

He loves all of her. Just like she is.

And there's a finality to that. If she admits that he loves all of her, all her jagged, dog-eared, cobbled together pieces she has to accept that those pieces are really hers. Really her. She's not just trying them on for a while.

The other thing is this: when he fell in love with her it was the first time she fell in love with herself. It was the first time she was funny. Because he laughed. The first time she was worth saving. Because he unburied her. The first time she was worth sticking around for. Because he did.

Now that's not exactly true. She was always, already those things. But you couldn't see them. She didn't wear them like stupid socks or a cocky belt buckle. There was no proof until he proved it. That's what he's done to her.

And the same goes for him in a different way. Booth's always had the right things to say about how a man needs to be and what he needs to do. But once, he was a sniper and once he was a little sleazy and he's never been a saint. It's only because of her, because of her need to see proof and not just hear platitudes to believe something, because she does believe that he is that guy... that he's realized he is the guy he's always talked about. Good and courageous and loyal.

And for him that's great and for her that's awful. Because everyone's always on his side. But if she messes it up, if she loses him, she loses love and trust and hope but she also loses herself, who she's become. And that's worst of all.

Can she be that person, that woman? Can she let them tear themselves apart again? Can she hope they can put themselves back together better? They've done things a little differently this time, can they hope for the same outcome? Gamble on a better one?

She's not sure. So she'll say it again. "I don't know how."

She asks him not to look so sad but they've both been crying for a while now.

"Alright," he says, stepping away. Then he says, "You're right." Because what else can he do?

"Can we still work together?" She asks, hopeful, like a child.

It's his last chance to break it open, let it smash. But there's this look on her face and he can't do it. So he says _yes_, accepts the stalemate. Things don't smash and they don't have to go away for a year and try again later. They don't get to go away for a year and try again later.

But he's a little more practical now, she's helped him there and forced him to it. So he tells her he has to move on. Tells her like they've both known along who's holding them back. And, in her smallest whisper she says, "I know." Because they have and she does. Despite all protestation to the contrary.

She just wants to protect him. Them. Something's shifted in them, some paradigm somewhere deep down.

When they leave, it's arm and arm. It's comfortable and sweet and maybe the worst thing that could possibly happen. They almost broke open. Almost. But there they are, arm in arm, like nothing's happened. It's so familiar that they can go on like that for a while, pretending that it's all the same, that they're still walking near and with and alongside each other. They're trying to walk back to who they used to be. Just a moment ago.

But something cracked between them, there in the street. They're becalmed, stalemated, waiting to go one way or the other. Half way between ecstasy or heart-break. They've been here before, poised, stuck, waiting to smash.

Was this the end? Did they miss it? Or will they get another chance. Someone once told me, "Nothing in this universe happens just once. Infinity goes in both directions."

And no, it wasn't Carl Sandburg.


End file.
